The Basic Conical Torso Block (Part 2)

Post navigation

Marking Changes

Remove your fitted block.The Center Front adjustment makes an angle between the original Center Front line and the fitting line drawn in. We need to bisect that angle. First, draw a tick on the edge of the bodice at the midpoint between these two lines.Mark the midpoint between the other ends of these front lines. (Since my ends converge, this is already done.) Connect these midpoints. This is the new Center Front line.Mark an arch that connects the ticks marking the waistline adjustment in the back. This is the new back waistline level.Cut along: the Center Back line, the New Center Front line, the New Back Waist Line, and the lines on the straps.

Finishing the Block

Place the poster board block on a large sheet of paper.Trace around, being careful to mark all of the shaping lines. When you come to the strap adjustments, make a neat curve in place of the chunky angle folded in to the strap.Connect the shaping line marks, and label the Side, Center Front, and Center Back lines. Label the block.

Viola! Cello! You’re done! As a best practice, any time you make a block (or pattern) you should label the block with what it is, who it’s for, and the date it was drafted. I’ve labelled beneath the block for readability here, but in future demos you’ll see a block labelled “Basic Conic Block, Brenda, 06/10”. The date is most important when drafting for humans, who tend to change dimension over time. (I have something around 62 patterns for the same basic ren corset for myself, for example, because of my little yo-yo diet habit.)

As you go forward, it’s always easier to re-check the fit of a block (or re-draft the block) than to make a fully boned corset and then have to alter it. Poster board is cheap, and really fast for mock-up purposes. A fully boned corset in a lovely silk-linen blend, hand-bound with silk bias, which then flat-out refused to close is expensive and really annoying to alter…..

Possible Problems

if…

try…

Your Armscye ends up above your bustline….

Recheck your Nape->Bust, Nape->Waist measurements. Make sure you’ve taken them out to the level of the bust, rather than flat across the body. If you have taken the measurements correctly, don’t worry about it. Just draw the armscye up on the side line.

When you mark your Center Front adjustment, you need to add at the waist and remove at the bust, resulting in a big ol’ X between the Center Front and Adjustment lines….

Don’t worry – this is completely normal. Mark the midpoints, top and bottom, and draw in the New Center Front line.

This list will be updated based on questions posted in the comments section….

Aaaaalllllright, then. Fixed. That took entirely too long.
< civic geekery >
Note to the collective human knowledgebase known as the web: After upgrading to WordPress 3.0, my permalink structure (/%category%/%postname%/) with my marvelously nested category structure became too much for the wordpress/mod_rewrite engine to handle. Links within paginated posts automatically redirected to the post permalink, and all page information was stubbornly dropped from the link. On the advice of a terribly clever fellow at http://www.weberz.com/blog/2009/06/seo-experts-give-wrong-advice-wordpress-permalinks , I changed my permalink structure to /%year%/%postname%/ – still readable, faster, and most importantly, it fixes the problem.
</civic geekery>

Where do you get such big poster board to do this for human-size? I got the standard size they sell for 99 cents at the pharmacy, and I’m a pretty tiny person, and I can’t do that with the center line. I’m going to be cutting two pieces and taping them together.

You can find larger poster board than that at most art stores – (including Hobby Lobby, Blick, Michaels, etc) and any place that caters to students (walgreens, target, kmart, walmart-even-thought-I’m-still-boycotting), and often also at JoAnn’s.